I changed the mattress covers, with the assistance of Chris, for that was a very hard thing to do, to slip a full-size mattress in and out of one of those heavy quilted things, and yet we had to do it often because of Cory's lack of control. Chris and I made the beds up with clean linens, and smoothed on the spreads, and tidied up the room, while Carrie sat alone in the rocker and stared off into space.
Around ten, there was nothing left to do but sit on the bed nearest the door to the hall, with our eyes riveted upon the knob, willing it to turn and admit Momma, who would bring us news.
Shortly thereafter, Momma came in with her eyes rimmed red from crying. Behind her was the steeleyed grandmother, tall, stern, no tears.
Our mother faltered near the door as if her legs would give way and spill her to the floor. Chris and I jumped to our feet, but Carrie only stared at Momma's empty eyes.
"I drove Cory to a hospital miles away, the nearest one, really," explained our mother in a tight and hoarse voice that choked from time to time, "and I registered him under a false name, saying he was my nephew, my ward."
Lies! Always lies! "Momma--how is he?" I asked impatiently.
Her glazed blue eyes turned our way; void eyes, staring vacantly; lost eyes, seeking something gone forever--I guessed it was her humanity. "Cory had pneumonia," she intoned. "The doctors did all they could. . . but it was . . . too. . . too late."
Had pneumonia?
All they could?
Too late?
All past tenses!
Cory was dead! We were never going to see him again!
Chris said later the news hit him hard in the groin, like a kick, and I did see him stumble backward and spin around to hide his face as his shoulders sagged and he sobbed.
At first I didn't believe her. I stood and I stared, and I doubted. But the look on her face convinced me, and something big and hollow swelled up inside my chest. I sank down on the bed, numb, almost paralyzed, and didn't even know I was crying until my clothes were wet.
And even as I sat and cried, I still didn't want to believe Cory was gone from our lives. And Carrie, poor Carrie, she lifted up her head, threw it back, and opened up her mouth and screamed!
She screamed and screamed until her voice went, and she could scream no more. She drifted to the corner where Cory kept his guitar and his banjo, and neatly she lined up all his pairs of small worn tennis shoes. And that's where she chose to sit, with the shoes, with the musical instruments, and Mickey's cage nearby, and from that moment on, not a word escaped her lips.
"Will we go to his funeral?" Chris asked in a choked way with his back still turned.
"He's already been buried," said Momma. "I had a false name put on the tombstone." And then, very quickly, she escaped the room and our questions, and the grandmother followed, her lips set in a grim, thin line.
Right before our horrified eyes, Carrie shriveled more each day. I felt God might as well have taken Carrie, too, and buried her alongside Cory in that faraway grave with the wrong name that didn't even have the comfort of a father buried nearby.
None of us could eat much. We became listless and tired, always tired. Nothing held our interest. Tears--Chris and I cried five oceans of tears. We assumed all the blame. A long time ago we should have escaped. We should have used that wooden key and gone for help. We had let Cory die! He'd been our responsibility, our dear quiet little boy of many talents, and we had let him die. Now we had a small sister huddled in a corner, growing weaker each passing day.
Chris said in a low voice so Carrie wouldn't overhear, just in case she was listening, though I doubted she was (she was blind, deaf, mute . . . our babbling brook, damned), "We've got to run, Cathy, and quick. Or we are all going to die like Cory. Something is wrong with all of us. We've been locked up too long. We've lived abnormal lives, like being in a vacuum without germs, without the infections children usually come in contact with. We are without resistance to infections."
"I don't understand," I said.
"What I mean is," he whispered as we huddled in the same chair, "like the creatures from Mars in that book The War of the Worlds we could all die from a single cold germ."
Horrified, I could only stare at him. He knew so much more than I did. I turned my gaze on Carrie in the corner. Her sweet baby face, with eyes too large and shadowed underneath, stared blankly forward at nothing. I knew she had her vision fixed on eternity, where Cory was. All the love I'd given Cory, I put into Carrie now . . . so afraid for her. Such a tiny skeleton body, and her neck was so weak, too small for her head. Was this the way all the Dresden dolls were going to end?
"Chris, if we have to die, it's not going to be like mice in a trap. If germs can kill us, then let it be germs--so when you steal tonight, take everything of value you can find and we can carry! I'll pack a lunch to take along. With Cory's clothes taken from the suitcases, we'll have more room. Before the morning comes, we'll be gone."
"No," he said quietly. "Only if we know Momma and her husband have gone out--only then can I take all the money and leave, and all the jewelry in one fell swoop. Take only what we absolutely need--no toys, no games. And Cathy, Momma may not go out tonight. Certainly she can't attend parties in her time of mourning."
How could she mourn when she had to keep her husband always in the dark? And no one came but the grandmother to tell us what was going on. She refused to speak to us, or look at us. In my mind we were already on our way, and I looked at her as if she were already part of the past. Now that our time to depart was so near, I felt frightened. It was big out there. We'd be on our own. What would the world think of us now?
We weren't beautiful like we used to be, only pale and sickly attic mice with long flaxen hair, wearing expensive but ill-fitting clothes, and sneakers on our feet.
Chris and I had educated ourselves from reading so many books, and television had taught us much about violence, about greed, about imagination, but it had taught us hardly anything that was practical and useful in preparing us to face reality.
Survival. That's what TV should teach innocent children. How to live in a world that really doesn't give a damn about anyone but their own--and sometimes, not even their own.
Money. If there was one thing we'd learned during the years of our imprisonment, it was that money came first, and everything else came after. How well Momma had said it long ago: "It's not love that makes the world go 'round--it's money."
I took Cory's small clothes from the suitcase, his second-best sneakers, two pair of pajamas, and all the time tears fell and my nose ran. In one of the side pockets of the suitcase, I found sheet music he must have packed himself. Oh, it did hurt to pick up those sheets, and see the lines he had drawn by using a ruler, and his little black notes, and half-notes so crookedly done. And beneath the musical score (he had taught himself to write down the music from an encyclopedia Chris had found for him) Cory had written words to a half-completed song:
I wish the night would end,
I wish the day'd begin,
I wish it would rain or snow,
Or the wind would blow,
Or the grass would grow,
I wish I had yesterday,
I wish there were games to play. . . .
Oh, God! Was there ever such a sad, melancholy song? So these were the lyrics to a tune I'd heard him play over and over. Wishing, always wishing for something he couldn't have. Something all other little boys accepted as a normal, unremarkable part of their lives.
I could have screamed the anguish I felt.
I went to sleep with Cory on my mind. And, like always, when I was most troubled, I fell into dreams. But this time I was only me. I found myself on a winding, dirt path with wide, flat pastures that grew wildflowers of crimson and pink on the left, and on the right, yellow and white blossoms swayed gently in the soft, warm kind breezes of eternal spring. A small child clung to my hand. I looked down, expecting to see Carrie--but it was Cory!
He was laughing and happy, and he sk
ipped along beside me, his short legs trying to keep pace with mine, and in his hand he held a bouquet of the wildflowers. He smiled up at me and was about to speak when we heard the twitterings of many brightly colored birds in the parasol trees ahead.
A tall, slim man with golden hair, his skin deeply tanned, wearing white tennis clothes, came striding forward from a glorious garden of abundant trees and radiant flowers, including roses of all colors. He paused a dozen yards away and held his arms out to Cory.
My heart, even in my dream, pounded in excitement and joy! It was Daddy! Daddy had come to meet Cory so he wouldn't have to travel alone the rest of the way. And though I knew I should release Cory's small hot hand, I would hold him forever with me.
Daddy looked at me, not with pity, not with reprimand, but only with pride and admiration. And I let go of Cory's hand and stood to watch him joyfully run into Daddy's arms. He was swept up by powerful arms that once used to hold me and make me feel all the world was a wonderful thing. And I would step down the path, too, and feel those arms about me once again, and allow Daddy to take me where he would.
"Cathy, wake up!" said Chris, sitting on my bed and shaking me. "You're talking in your sleep, and laughing and crying, and say ing hello, and then goodbye. Why is it you dream so much?"
My dream spilled from me so fast my words were garbled. Chris just sat there and stared at me, as did Carrie, who had awakened to hear as well. It had been so long since I last saw my father, his face had faded in my memory, but as I looked at Chris, I grew very confused. He was so very much like Daddy, only younger.
That dream was to haunt me many a day, pleasantly. It gave me peace. It gave me knowledge I hadn't had before. People never really died. They only went on to a better place, to wait a while for their loved ones to join them. And then once more they went back to the world, in the same way they had arrived the first time around.
Escape
. November tenth. This was to be our last day in prison. God would not deliver us, we would deliver ourselves.
As soon as the hour passed ten, tonight, Chris would commit his final robbery. Our mother had visited to stay but a few minutes, ill at ease with us now, very obviously so. "Bart and I are going out tonight. I don't want to, but he insists. You see, he doesn't understand why I look so sad."
I bet he didn't understand. Chris slung over his shoulder the dual pillowcases in which to carry back heavy jewels. He stood in the open doorway and gave Carrie and me one long, long look before he closed the door and used his wooden key to lock us in, for he couldn't leave the door open, and in this way alert the grandmother, if she came to check. We couldn't hear Chris steal along the long dark northern corridor, for the walls were too thick, and the hall carpet too plush and sound-proofing.
Side by side Carrie and I lay, my arms
protectively around her.
If that dream hadn't come to tell me Cory was well taken care of, I would have cried not to feel him close still. I couldn't help but ache for a little boy who had called me Momma whenever he was sure his older brother wouldn't overhear. Always he'd been so afraid Chris might consider him a sissy if he knew how much he missed and needed his mother, so much so, he had to make do with me. And though I'd told him Chris would never laugh, or jeer, for he had been very needing of a mother too, once upon a time, still Cory would keep it a secret just between him and me--and Carrie. He had to pretend to be manly, and convince himself it didn't matter if he had neither a mother, nor a father, when all along it did matter, a great deal.
I held Carrie tight, tight against me, vowing that if ever I had a child, or children, they'd never feel a need for me that I didn't sense and respond to. I'd be the best mother alive.
Hours dragged by like years, and still Chris didn't return from his last foray into our mother's grand suite of rooms. Why was it taking so long this time? Wide awake and miserable, I was filled with fears, and envisioned all the calamities that could stay him.
Bart Winslow . . . the suspicious husband . . . he'd catch Chris! Call the police! Have Chris thrown in jail! Momma would stand calmly by and mildly express shock and faint surprise that someone would dare steal from her. Oh, no, of course she didn't have a son. Everybody knew she was childless, for heaven's sake. Had they ever seen her with a child? She didn't know that blond boy with blue eyes so very much like her own. After all, she did have many cousins scattered about--and a thief was a thief, even if he were blood kin, some fifth or sixth distant relative.
And that grandmother! If she caught him--the worst possible punishment!
Dawn came up quickly, faint, shrilled by a cock's crow.
The sun lingered reluctantly on the horizon. Soon it would be too late to go. The morning train would pass on by the depot, and we needed several hours' head start before the grandmother opened the bedroom door and found us gone. Would she send out a search party? Notify the police? Or would she, more likely, just let us go, glad, at last, to be rid of us?
Despairing, I ascended the stairs to the attic to stare outside. Foggy, cold day. Last week's snow lay in patches here and there. A dull, mysterious day that seemed incapable of bringing us joy or freedom. I heard that rooster cockle-doodle-doo again; it sounded muffled and far away as I silently prayed that, whatever Chris was doing, and wherever he was, he heard it too, and would put some speed in his feet.
I remember, oh, how I remember that chilly early morning when Chris stole back into our room. Lying beside Carrie, I was tentatively on the edge of fretful sleep, so it was easy for me to bolt widely awake when the locked door to our room opened. I'd lain there, fully dressed, ready to go, waiting, even in the fitful dreams that came and went, for Chris to come back and save us all.
Just inside the door, Chris hesitated, his glazed eyes staring over at me. Then he drifted in my direction, in no great hurry, as he should be. All the while I could only stare at the pillowcases one inside the other--so flat! So empty looking! "Where are the jewels?" I cried. "Why did you stay so long? Look out the windows, the sun is rising! We'll never make it to the train depot on time!" My voice turned hard, accusing, angry. "You turned chivalrous again, didn't you? That's why you've come back without Momma's precious jewelry!"
He had reached the bed by this time, and he just stood there with the flat, empty pillowcases hanging from his hand.
"Gone," he said dully. "All the jewelry was gone."
"Gone?" I asked sharply, sure he was lying, covering up, still unwilling to take what his mother so cherished. Then I looked at his eyes. "Gone? Chris, the jewelry is always there. And what's the matter with you, anyway--why do you look so queer?"
He sagged down on his knees beside the bed, gone boneless and limp as his head drooped forward, and his face nestled down on my breast. Then he began to sob! Dear God! What had gone wrong? Why was he crying? It's terrible to hear a man cry, and I thought of him as a man now, not a boy.
My arms held him, my hands caressed and stroked his hair, his cheek, his arms, his back, and then I kissed him, all in an effort to soothe whatever awful thing had happened. I did what I had seen our mother do for him in times of distress, and intuitively I had no fears that his passions would be aroused into wanting more than just what I was willing to give.
Actually, I had to force him to talk, to explain.
He choked off his sobs, and swallowed them. He wiped away the tears and dried his face with the edge of the sheet. Then he turned his head so he could stare at those horrible paintings depicting hell and all its torment. His phrases came broken, disjointed, stopped often by sobs he had to hold back.
This was the way he told it, while on his knees beside my bed, while I held his shaky hands, and his body trembled, and his blue eyes were dark and bleak, warning me I was about to be shocked. Forewarned as I was, I still wasn't prepared for what I heard.
"Well," he began, breathing hard, "I realized that something was different the second I stepped into her suite of rooms. I beamed my flashlight around without turning on a lam
p, and I just couldn't believe it! The irony of it . . . the hateful, despicable bitterness of making our move too late! Gone, Cathy-- Momma and her husband have gone! Not just to some neighbor's party, but really gone! They had taken with them all those little mementos that made their rooms personal: the trinkets gone from the dresser, the geegaws from that dressing table, the creams, lotions, powders, and perfumes--everything that once was there, gone. Nothing was on her dressing table.
"It made me so mad, I ran about like someone demented, dashing from here to there, pulling open drawers and ransacking them, hoping to find something of value that we could pawn . . . and I didn't find anything t Oh, they did a very good job-- not even a little porcelain pillbox was left, or one of those heavy Venetian-glass paperweights that cost a fortune. I ran into the dressing room and yanked open all the drawers. Sure, she had left some things--junk of no value to us, or anyone: lipsticks, cold creams, and stuff like that. Then I pulled open that special bottom drawer--you know the one she told us about a long time ago, never thinking we'd be the ones to steal from her. I pulled that drawer all the way out, like you have to, and set it aside on the floor. Then I felt in back for the tiny little button you have to push in a certain combination of numbers--her birthday numbers, or else she would herself forget the combination. Remember how she laughed when she told us that? The secret compartment sprang open, and there were the velvet trays where dozens of rings should have been fitted into small slots, and there wasn't a ring there--not one! And the bracelets, necklaces, and earrings gone, every last thing was gone, Cathy, even that tiara you tried on. Oh, golly, you don't know how I felt! So many times you pleaded with me to take just one little ring, and I wouldn't, because I believed in her."
"Don't cry again, Chris," I begged when he choked up, and he put his face down on my chest again. "You didn't know she'd go, not so soon after Cory's death."
Flowers in the Attic Page 36